TUTS’ Seven Brides brings MGM fave from screen to stage

Seven Bribes for Seven Congressmen — now, wouldn’t that make a nifty musical?

But I digress. The matter at hand is Theatre Under The Stars’ stage adaptation of the 1954 movie musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which opened Thursday night at Hobby Center.

Well-meaning individuals keep trying to adapt this movie to the stage, though it’s difficult to understand why. You would think they’d have called it quits after the 1982 Broadway version drew unanimously bad reviews and closed after just five showings. Yet according to Playbill.com, “the authors of the show have been revising the script continually since then.”

Given that, one might expect better results.

Still, what they’ve pulled together from assorted editions and re-thinks isn’t bad. It’s patchy, broadly played, occasionally entertaining, with some nice moments scattered amid a few dire ones. Probably better than we have any right to expect.

Though fondly remembered, the movie’s status rests on its one true distinction, Michael Kidd’s rousing choreography. And that, chiefly for one number, the “barn raising” at which the backwoods brothers vie with snooty townies for the girls of their dreams. Otherwise, the film offers a pleasant but second-drawer Johnny Mercer-Gene de Paul score and a thin plot.

In the Oregon Territory of 1850, backwoodsman Adam Pontipee comes to town and persuades restaurant cook Milly to marry him after a single meeting. He brings her to the cabin he shares with his six younger brothers (whom he neglected to mention!) and she sets about trying to civilize all seven galoots.

Her presence gets Adam’s six brothers yearning for brides of their own. At Adam’s suggestion, borrowed from Plutarch’s retelling of the abduction of the “Sobbin”’ (Sabine) Women, the brothers kidnap the town sweethearts they met at a recent social and haul them out to the wilderness.

There’s little depth or character development. Adam is strapping. Milly is spunky. The six brothers and their brides handily supply the chorus. But they’re also the supporting cast and there’s the rub: six peas-in-a-pod siblings with little differentiation, and their six even more interchangeable sweeties.

Toughest to overcome is the pivotal kidnapping. OK, the brothers get reprimanded by Milly, who keeps the girls in separate quarters. The boys are chastened and learn how to behave. And the girls really hanker for the brothers anyway. But it’s still kidnapping! If someone were to write this tale in today’s more sensitive climate, you’d have to re-title it Seven Victims for Seven Predators (well six, since Milly consented to her fate.)

The current Lawrence Kasha-David Landay script hews closely to the film, padding the Milly-Adam relationship so she stands up to him more often.

The current song list keeps five from the movie (including the best, Goin’ Courtin’ and Sobbin’ Women), plus a handful of those that Al Kasha and Joel Hirschhorn wrote for the 1982 stage version, and another handful written since (apparently also by Kasha-Hirschhorn). This team apparently felt the way to complete the score was to write numbers that sound like outtakes from Paint Your Wagon. Love Never Goes Away and Glad That You Were Born are OK ballads. But Adam’s cliche-ridden, breast-beating Where Were You? is such an embarrassing piece of writing that I had to cast my eyes to the floor.

Edward Watts equips Adam with stalwart voice and macho presence, but nothing can disguise the fact that his character is a lout. Michelle Dawson somewhat overdoes the feisty act at the start, but she gives some sense of individual character to Milly, singing with interesting color as well as beauty.

The brothers are all strapping and rambunctious, dancing with robust athleticism. The “brides” (with far less to do) are fetching and dance expertly.

Director Scott Schwartz keeps it all clipping along steadily as a freight train. He strives for dramatic heft in serious moments, but plays the frequent comic bits as cartoonishly as “Li’l Abner” (which had a much better Mercer-de Paul score.) He makes good use of Anna Louizos’ picturesque settings, with transitions that suggest the distance from town to wilderness.

But wouldn’t you know it? As in the movie, the best thing about this version is still the choreography. Patti Colombo has devised elaborate, athletic routines, with nods to Kidd’s style and trademark moves. When Milly drills the brothers in Goin’ Courtin’, in a second act courtship ballet and the wedding finale, and especially the “Challenge Dance” (as it’s now called) in which the brothers and townies breathlessly compete for the girls, the show comes to life and its exuberance at last feels genuine rather than forced.

2 Responses

I saw Thursday night’s show. It was fabulous! The dances were breathtaking! The singing was great! It was probably one of the most entertaining musicals I have seen in 25 years of attending musical theater. I am still floating today over the great entertainment I saw last night. The audience LOVED it. Actually stopped the show at one point with their applause. Are you sure we saw the same show? Your review has no relation to what the audience experienced.

I beg to differ with Barbara’s comment. I attended the show and thought it was far from “fabulous.” I will admit that the dancing was phenomenal–certainly entertaining and energetic. I was far from impressed, however, with Edward Watts as Adam and Michelle Dawson as Milly. I agree that Watts’ Adam was cliché-ridden and overdone, and Dawson’s Milly was a little too spunky for my taste. As for the remaining six brothers–I, like Everett, found it difficult to distinguish between them. As a huge Seven Brides fan, however, I was perhaps most disappointed in TUTS’s divergence from the original script and score. I sorely missed songs such as “A Woman Oughta Know Her Place.” It would have certainly been more stirring than its replacement: “Where Were You?” As a result, I wasn’t at all impressed with the production. Despite appreciating the terrific choreography, I was left feeling angry and disappointed after having wasted $70 to see such a show. For now, I’ll stick to touring shows at the Hobby Center.